FenderShowman63
It's not about expanding my musical vocabulary. Its just for Fun that's all

Which is absolutely fine, but it is your choice to allow it to be that way.

Ralph
The Storm Surfers

Be at one with the universe. If you can't do that, at least be at one with your guitar.

BillAqua
I'm willing to bet that if you took whatever awfully pointy piece of basswood any shredder was playing, replaced it with a offset fender strung with heavy strings and plugged him into a reverb tank then locked him into a room with a recording of pipeline he could copy that sound pretty easily.

However, I doubt the young man who played on Pipeline could figure out what the shredder was in a few hours.

No doubt that is true, but then what guitar player would want to be a shredder, that isn't even about music as much as ego, is it? I've seen a lot of guys who could shred impressively but that's about all they could do, and they couldn't even do that at low volume, without a basswood body and a ton of effects.

Stormtiger

BillAqua
I'm willing to bet that if you took whatever awfully pointy piece of basswood any shredder was playing, replaced it with a offset fender strung with heavy strings and plugged him into a reverb tank then locked him into a room with a recording of pipeline he could copy that sound pretty easily.

However, I doubt the young man who played on Pipeline could figure out what the shredder was in a few hours.

No doubt that is true, but then what guitar player would want to be a shredder, that isn't even about music as much as ego, is it? I've seen a lot of guys who could shred impressively but that's about all they could do, and they couldn't even do that at low volume, without a basswood body and a ton of effects.

So true. That's why Jazz Guitarist are impressive, they don't need anything but a clean tone, or maybe not even an amp. There just good.

The Deadbeats

tenderfoot

Stormtiger

tenderfoot
An impressionist is an artist with a drastically reduced ability to paint realistically...

Man, I hope you are kidding, you aren't one of those who doesn't want to see brushstrokes are you? Thomas Kincaide fan?

Ugh. Can't stand Thomas Kincaide! Yes, I was kidding, or more acurately, I was illustrating the absurdity of this faulty logic. A artist who chooses to paint impressionism is assumed to have less skill than one who paints realistically....wrong. The guitarist that chooses to play surf has less talent...etc is also wrong.

Personally, I am a Ruben Kincaid fan. Yeah, I know the Partridge Family didn't play surf, but Ruben Kincaid was a great manager...

"Are the majority of guitar players currently playing in surf bands capable of fingerpicking a Merle Travis instrumental, or playing a Charlie Christian solo with any degree of conviction, or capable of working out a bunch of chord substitutions for a jazz ballad? "
My money is on NO.

I second what Zak says.

Rev

Canadian Surf

http://www.urbansurfkings.com/

After nearly three pages, it's good to see the thread return to the subject of Carl Wilson.

I don't have the liner notes with me, but am I correct in believing that Brian didn't use a lot of session musicians until the "Surfer Girl" LP?

I think most of the BB surf instrumentals were on their first two albums, "Surfin' Safari" and "Surfin' USA" - and I'm pretty sure it WAS Carl playing on those tracks.

I was just listening to "Stoked" the other day, and it sure has "the" sound for me. So I think it's pretty safe to say that the Beach Boys "were" a surf band on those first two albums.

I believe that Carl played on every BB album, if not every song, untill his untimely passing. He was the only member of the group to do so.

the Keef Richards of Surf Guitar

JakeDobner
Surf Guitarist is a horrible term that I wouldn't want any musician to fall into. That pegs you as just the one thing.

Do you go on the In & Out Burger board & post stuff about how In & Out burgers suck, too?

But seriously folks...is Link Wray a surf guitarist?

Radio Free Bakersfield--60 Minutes of TWANG, CRUNCH, OOMPH.
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No, Link Wray is not a surf guitarist.
I don't think Jake is saying simple = sucks, on the contrary. Simplicity in any form of art, design, music, architecture, philosophy, etc. can be sublime. Come to think of it, complexity sucks.

I'm having a lot of trouble determining what side everyone is on here. The general consensus is that surf is a genre that requires little technical prowess from most, and I agree. But it seems like everyone is implying that surf is therefore lame, and I (selectively) disagree. (Maybe I'm reading into everyone's comments too much. Maybe that's what's got me confused.) I don't see technical skill as the problem so much as bad songwriting. I guess the two tend to go hand in hand--bad guitarists tend to write bad songs--which is why the lines are fuzzy. But there are bad guitarists and bad songwriters everywhere--blues, metal, whatever.
Complexity (or lack thereof) aside, surf is it's own form, so why should it matter how it aligns with the forms of other genres? I like to focus on its merits rather than dwell on its shortcomings (though yes, the shortcomings should be addressed rather than ignored).

JakeDobner
You can't use outliers such as Dave Wronski, Shigeo, or Ivan to try and prove that surf guitar isn't a simple genre. They are exceptions to the rule. The majority of surf tunes are rather simple in technicality and are devoid of any complex structure.

True, and fair enough. But I don't see why it's fair to compare run-of-the-mill surf to exceptional players in other genres. Genres like classical, blues, and metal have had longer histories and greater popularity than surf, and therefore more opportunities for outliers to show up, and we seem to like to exemplify those outliers. I don't really get the logic of "Joe-Schmo-Surfer has limited himself because he can't play Merle Travis." Has Travis limited himself because he can't play Segovia? Or Segovia since he can't play Malmsteen? Malmsteen because he can't play Travis? These guys aren't the archetypes of their genres either. Go out regularly to shows, clubs, and parties and whatnot and I'm sure you'll find a whole slew of really crappy and unenjoyable blues, metal, rock, country, folk, etc acts around, just like in surf music.

And if surf is so disappointingly easy to play for some of you guys then, shit, spice it up! Challenge yourselves. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear people taking it to their next personal level. I'm primarily self-taught and by no means a great guitarist, but I still try and write songs that at least challenge me personally. Just because it's easy for me to play something like Pipeline, I'm not gonna settle for songs that sound as simple and play as effortlessly. There's no reason for surf to be "strict surf" these days.